Work Text:
The world falls apart all at once in the humidity of the midday sun.
"Smoker? Did you see?" Hina's voice holds a steady tone, always in control. It was something Smoker admired her for.
"Please listen. Hina thinks--"
But the thought is lost. The receiver thuds against its holder and Smoker would think he'd gone blind for a moment, if not for the fact that his room spreads out before him as visible as always. Unrecognizable.
He'll have to hand the paper over to Tashigi eventually. And all at once every marine aboard his ship will be able to decipher the black and white typography of the expression on their captain's face.
The idiot had it coming. Smoker knew that this was coming. A memory arises unprompted, and he recalls smiling up at Roger on the man's death march. The sun had hung just as oppressively, then. But everyone had still clamored in hordes to see one of their own strung up on the scaffold. A spectacle.
There was something ticking against some deep corner of his brain. Something Kuzan once told him about making hard decisions and sacrifice.
"Tashigi!" he barks out. One of his marines will hear him. She'll come. She does, too quickly. Her hand is up in an unnecessary salute. She could disappear just as easily, Smoker thinks. Fraternization with pirates is never looked upon too kindly when a young cadet is in question. He tastes bile at the back of his throat as she takes the offered paper.
He listens to her say absolutely nothing it the time it takes for his exhaled smoke to reach the gray planks of wood above him.
"Captain," she whispers eventually, her voice that Tashigi-branded combination of hesitant-yet-confident. Her breath still quivers. He doesn't say anything. He can feel her eyes on him.
And so she steps out.
He can hear the silence break above the sound of ringing in his ears.